Is The New 'It' Movie Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
The new film adaptation of Stephen King's novel "It" from director Andy Muschietti ("Mama"), out Friday, September 8, has huge expectations riding on it. Not only does the film have to do justice to the novel's first half (with the latter being saved for a sequel), but it also faces comparisons to the 1990 Tim Curry miniseries and to what could've been if co-screenwriter Cary Fukunaga had stayed on as this version's director. Does Muschietti's take live up to the challenge? Here's what reviews say:
In A Sort-Of Meta Move, 'It' Now Takes Place In The '80s
The main change in this new "It" is that the time frame for this first half has been moved from the 1950s to the 1980s, and the kids who have to fight Pennywise, a group of outcasts who call themselves "The Losers' Club," resemble the cute kids in "The Goonies" or "Stranger Things."
[TheWrap]
The update makes sense, given that today's thirtysomethings grew up in the '80s, not the '50s. It also provides an excuse to punch up the dialogue with comic asides, enabling Stranger Things' Finn Wolfhard to walk away with every scene he's in as precocious motormouth Richie Tozier. But the temptation of familiar cultural signifiers proves too great, and the film leans a little too hard into winking references to Michael Jackson and New Kids On The Block, losing the classic feel of King's novel in the process.
Clown Aside, 'It' Dwells On The Horrors Of Adolescence
King's story of seven youngsters who come of age while confronting a shape-shifting demonic presence in small-town Maine, then come home as adults to deal with its return, is quite a lot of things. It's a messy, druggy attempt to distill decades of horror tropes into a chaotic fever dream; a portrait of a fictional town as obsessively mapped as Joyce's Dublin; a meditation on childhood, trauma, and forgetting; "In Search of Lost Time" bloodied up for the grindhouse.
[Variety]
At its best, It captures the very specific terrors of early adolescence — the stuff that feels all the more haunting because they're scrubbed clean from our idealized notions of youth, the stuff that happens in the corners where no one else is around to see, the stuff that maybe even happens at the very hands of the people who are supposed to protect you. Plus, you know, the occasional creepy painting or two.
[Mashable]
The 'Losers' Club' Ensemble Is Very Well Cast
Muschietti has constructed a film that's just as much "Stand by Me" as creature feature, and casting director Rich Delia goes above the call of duty assembling a group of youngsters who are every bit as funny, irritating and empathetic as the script requires. Lieberher and Lillis are particularly revelatory, their flirtations warm and believable, and Lillis bears more than just a superficial resemblance to a young Amy Adams.
[Variety]
The camaraderie among the cast of teen actors who deliver fantastic performances as members of the Losers' Club keeps the movie feeling so invigorating minute after minute. There's an enormous amount of pressure on these teens to make the audience care about their characters. Without the Losers' Club, It doesn't have anyone to root for. Each individual performance stands on its own and contributes to the most important quality the film succeeds on: its ability to endear.
[Polygon]
While some of the members of the so-called Losers' Club aren't particularly well-drawn, each character has enough dimension that we care about their fate. And the central players, especially Lieberher and Lillis, believably convey that ungainly mixture of petulance, sweetness, fragility and innocence so familiar to all parents of teenagers.
Bill Skarsgård Is Good As Pennywise…
As Pennywise, the deeply spooky spectre who appears in the guise of the teens' greatest fears, Skarsgård is icily menacing, the character's evil eyes freezing the audience in its tracks. Mostly appearing as a creepy clown, Skarsgård taps into the disturbing juxtaposition of frivolity and derangement that many people associate with this common children's entertainer. With the aid of makeup and special effects, the actor's nerve-wracking stillness allows Pennywise to rightly assume his place among cinema's memorable horror villains; even more appropriate as the film takes place during the late 1980s, when icons such as Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees were haunting cinemas.
… But Pennywise's Tricks Are A Little Let Down By The Film
Horror is like comedy in that timing is everything. If you hold a shot too long or for too short a time, the image will no longer have the power to scare us. Muschietti doesn't quite get this balance right when he first reveals Skarsgård's Pennywise in a storm drain. It feels as if the shots need to be held slightly longer for the full sense of dread to be captured, but Muschietti does not have time to linger here.
[TheWrap]
Pennywise, we learn, is a shapeshifter who can take on whatever form is most frightening to his victim. And the film gets right into those hauntings, with a series of sequences in which, targeted when each is alone, the kids seemingly hallucinate horrible things. Though effective individually, the scenes don't build upon each other to fill us with dread. And they would benefit from a few more practical effects mixed in with the CG, especially if Muschietti wants to milk some retro pleasures from his setting.
As creature design has become easier and more elaborate, thanks to digital techniques, it has also become less imaginative. Movie monsters resemble one another more and more, and movies of distinct genres feel increasingly trapped within the expected. The climactic sequence of "It" sacrifices horror-movie creepiness for action-movie bombast, staging a big fight in a cavernous space. We might as well be looking at superheroes.
In its final act, just as It should be raising the stakes, cranking up the emotion, and delivering us a balls-out bonkers finale, It instead devolves into a generic monster battle and starts to drag.
[Mashable]
This 'It' Is Less A Horror Flick Than A Thriller Or Adventure Movie
What's scary about "It," for [the characters] and for the audience, is also fun. The group ranges freely through the forests and fields around Derry, playing detective until the forces of darkness stand revealed with slimy tentacles and multiple rows of sharp, ravenous teeth.
It can never get scary because you're always one step ahead of the game. The music cues up, the actors get scared, the scenery changes and, before you have time to roll your eyes, Pennywise's smug face is there, grinning like the devil himself.
[Polygon]
It is a solid thriller that works best when it is most involved in its adolescent heroes' non-monster-related concerns. It will prove much more satisfying to King's legion of fans than [The Dark] Tower did. But it falls well short of the King-derived film it clearly wants to evoke, Stand By Me; and newcomers who were spoiled by the eight richly developed hours of Stranger Things may wonder what the big deal is supposed to be.
'It' Is A Solid Adaptation That Could Have Been So Much More
Perhaps the writers gave us the best adaptation of a practically un-adaptable book that anyone could give. But it's hard not to wonder, had the studio not felt the need to clean up this messy, sprawling tale, if this could have been one for the ages.
It's hard not to imagine what director Cary Fukunaga might have done with the material. (He left the project over creative differences, but retains a screenwriting credit.) His first season of "True Detective" showed a capacity for implying deep-seated terror around unknown possibilities; that would serve "It" far better than the maximalist approach and blunt dialogue that dominates Muschietti's treatment.
TL;DR
Much like Quentin Tarantino's first volume of "Kill Bill" offered a delirious yet morally unmoored mixtape of kung-fu spectacle, only for the second installment to provide the context that retroactively made it all meaningful, "It" very much feels like the flashier half of a longer story.
[Variety]
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